That's because they probably are from 2012. In the first 'recent' video he posted a comment explaining he was uploading old videos he hadn't previously published for varying reasons, and these are those videos.
Steel's melting point is around 1300 celcius, while the ball is probably somewhere around 900 celcius. Steel wool goes up in flames with a 9V battery because then it basically turns into the most fucked up electrical wiring that gets short circuited all over.
This is actually how VFX artists usually do fire on small scale miniatures, since the steel wool flickers and dims without any actual flames to give away the true scale or speed of the shot. Just set your camera to a high frame rate, paint a little bit of acetone onto the steel wool so it doesn't put itself out, grab a match, and you're good to go.
I wonder what would affect the thermal cascading effect favorably for you, perhaps cutting the wool into smaller pieces to increase the surface area of contact?
